What Is An Orphan Page?
An orphan page is a web page that is not linked to from any other page on the website. Orphan pages are completely isolated, and the only way users can get to the page is by using a direct link.
Problems with the site’s architecture, a CMS creating new URLs during the page creation process, or forgetting to delete an old page that no longer contains links are among the reasons why orphan pages appear.
Finding these pages can be difficult because they’re not easy to access. Searching for incoming links from third-party websites can reveal an orphan page. In some cases, orphan pages still rank for queries and show up in search results.
Orphan pages affect a website’s search engine performance by decreasing its crawl budget and dragging down the domain authority. Also, Google has publicly stated that web pages you want ranked high in its index should contain internal links (i.e., not be an orphan page).
Therefore, having too many orphan pages on a website can indicate to the search engine algorithms that the site doesn’t have many pages worth surfacing for users in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Visit the SEO Glossary
Go to the SEO Glossary to find more terms and definitions that relate to the field of search engine optimization.
The Editorial Staff at SEO Chatter is a team of search engine optimization and digital marketing experts led by Stephen Hockman with more than 15 years of experience in search engine marketing. We publish guides on the fundamentals of SEO for beginner marketers.
